Abstract
Air pollution is now considered to be the world’s largest environmental health threat, accounting for millions of deaths globally each year. The social group that is particularly exposed to the harmful effects of air pollution is children. Their vulnerability results from higher breathing frequency and being subject to concentration peaks just above the ground. The negative effects of ambient particulate matter also depend on the time of exposure. A daily route to school can constitute an important component of children’s physical activity, but air pollution can pose a threat to their health. Numerous studies have proved that high loads of PM can be effectively reduced by vegetation. Little is known, however, on whether vegetation can also reduce PM during leaf dormancy. In this study we investigated the role of trees in air purification during the leafless period in children’s routes to selected schools located in Warsaw during winter. The results obtained show a weak impact of the tree canopy in winter.
Highlights
Ambient air particulate matter (PM) concentrations recorded along routes to school in wintertime were very much associated with the location of the school in terms of the proximity to individual household heating emitters (Table 1)
Irrespective of the PM fraction and the time of day when measurements were made, significantly higher PM concentrations were recorded at schools B and D, which were surrounded by more emission sources (Figure 2)
Given that the children spend more than 50% of their active time commuting to school [18], exposure to pollutants can have a critical effect on their health, which can impede pulmonary function development [1], leading to asthma development [2] and susceptibility to otitis media [3]
Summary
Air pollution is considered to be the world’s largest environmental health threat, accounting for millions of deaths globally each year [1,2,3]. The main component of air pollution is particulate matter (PM), which can be emitted to the atmosphere directly (primary PM), or can be formed as a result of chemical reactions (secondary PM) [4]. Recent years have shown that the highest annual average concentrations of PM10 and PM2.5 in Europe occur in central and eastern. Particulate matter (PM), because of their small particle size, is the most harmful and most representative pollutant [8,9] and its major toxicological effects on human health and the environment have been observed for decades [10]
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